Once again - the blog paradox ....

... lots of time, noting to write about, no time, lots to write about. I'm very busy. But if I don't blog soon about the opera we saw down in Glasgow at the end of October I'll have forgotten all about it.

First up was Rigoletto. It's years since we saw Rigoletto and I had forgotten how beautiful the music is. But it really is, and it was well sung and well played in this production, which is a revival of one SO did a few years ago but which we obviously didn't see. What I liked about it was that it pulled no punches about what a man's world this court at Mantua was; women were literally sexual playthings and Gilda's treatment at the hands of the Duke was very obviously a rape and not a gentle seduction. When I say liked, I probably mean admired; it's easy to dress this opera up as a doomed love story, but unless you're talking about the love of a father and daughter for each other, then it's definitely not. I was sorry to hear the OH and Son No 2 laughing in places where, although what was happening on stage was designed to elicit a laugh from the male members of the audience, no husband or son of a feminist should have been laughing.

Here's a production photo of the Duke and Rigoletto

 

The following afternoon we went to see a concert version of Puccini's second opera, Edgar. This is 'rarely performed' and despite previous strictures here about 'rarely performed' being 'rarely performed for a reason', in this case I think it grows from Puccini's own comments (reportedly he  didn't think it was very good), ignorance (Self fulfilling prophecy, rarely performed, not known, no-one thinks to perform it because they don't know it) and staging problems (yes, the hero does burn down his father's house at the end of part one.) That said, if you ever get a chance to see it performed, stand not upon the order of your going,  just go. The music is fabulous and although the plot is a bit garbled, lots of operas have fairly garbled plots and this is no worse then many. Singing and playing were once again fabulous. It's invidious to single people out so I won't, except to say that I hope a certain Mr David Stout turns up on a Scottish Opera stage again in the not too distant future. He wasn't the best singer of the afternoon, although it was a case of wafer thin gradations between all the principals, but he started ahead of the pack for me by being a baritone. 

It was a wonderful start to my week away. 

Yes, I've been away. But never mind that - here's some knitting.

The being away was for ten days, give or take, and most of it was really enjoyable, or useful or both. No doubt I will stretch out the relevant tales over several blog entries over the next few days.  Meanwhile, in keeping with my determination to keep the knitting aspect of the blog up to date, here are some recently finished projects. Many of them are Christmas presents but I reckon I'm safe since neither of my boys, or my daughter-in-law,  actually read my blog. 

I started this jumper and hat set for younger grandson way back in the spring, then put it to one side when my eyes couldn't cope with reading the pattern. Recently finished and I am very happy with how it turned out. 

As always I have an 'if I were doing it again...' because I was brought up never to be happy with anything I did, and if I were doing it again I would put some red on the hat, but you know, I'm not doing it again, and a three year old isn't going to write me a  thank you letter saying 'I wish you'd done the ribbing on the hat in red' So I'm not going to stress. 

Then there are the Christmas present socks

These are for son number two who, like his father, likes bright socks.

These actually are mine, and not for Christmas, which is as well considering how much I have worn them since I finished them.

These are Christmas socks and are for Son No 1, who like me, prefers his socks to be on the conservative side, colour wise. 

I haven't yet posted about our experience of the annual archaeological extravaganza that is Brochtoberfest here in Orkney. I will, but meanwhile it is worth noting that if there was one thing that it taught me, it was the value of a warm, close fitting hat. I didn't have one, but never let it be said that I don't take lessons on board. Not long after I got home and started to warm up, I cast on this. It's basic, it was a quick knit, the yarn was in my stash and how I wish I had cast it on in the days before Brochtoberfest and not afterwards. And yes, I am going to do a matching set of fingerless mittens. Just not yet. 

That's it for knitting for now except for a shocking story. I was on the train from Leeds to Edinburgh yesterday afternoon. Happily I was not sitting on the sunny side of the carriage, although the lady  opposite was, naturally. As a result she was having problems seeing her Kindle and so she pulled down the anti-glare blind. Immediately the woman behind her squeaked 'I need the light'. Then she stood up, lowered over the reader (she was a big woman) and said 'I'm knitting. I need the light. You've pulled the blind down. I need you to put it back up'. Which the startled reader did; after which she had to curl her left hand round her Kindle in order to see the screen. Since the blind really does just reduce glare without cutting down the amount of light, I was annoyed and embarrassed that a fellow knitter should make such an unnecessary and really rather selfish fuss. I always think that knitters are all nice people, although I don't know why I think this, because experience has taught me that although probably about 98% are, there is always the stray 2%, and sooner or later you're going to meet one. 

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Baking Subscription October - yes, already!

Because I left the September box until quite late on because of my sisters visit, it wasn't long after I'd baked that that the October box came. And I made it more or less straight away. It is a thing of, if not, beauty, at least of joy. Just look!

Sticky toffee drip cake. It's luverlee. Although it was a bit of a faff and if I'm being really picky it's a bit sweet so needs something to cut through the sugary taste - if I were ever to do it again, which seems unlikely but not impossible, I'd put some lemon or lime curd through the middle. But definitely a success. 

So, that was a nice weekend....

... although I'm not sure how it as taken me until Thursday to blog about it!

We started off with a visit to the preview of the exhibition at The Loft Gallery. These change on a monthly basis through ten months of the year and when we're here, and if we remember, we like to go and show our faces to support the artists who show there.  The current exhibition is called Curious Beasts, which sounded promising, but the work was not to our taste sadly. It happens, and actually less often than you might think. There are some very talented artists, in all media,  who live and work in Orkney and we love their work much more often than not. 

(Incidentally a couple of weeks ago we went to an exhibition in The Old Library of the work of Kathy Pickles, whose website is here, and we enjoyed that enormously. The only reason that we didn't buy anything was because all the ones we really liked had gone before we got there - so, in about the first 40 minutes!)

After a quick lunch we scooted off to Skate Rumple Orkney Alpacas where we had a fabulous time. We saw, and fed, goats, pigs and the alpacas, also ducks by default as they stood around your feet waiting for all the stuff to drop out of the feeding scoops while the animals scarfed. Since hens make me feel uneasy, to put it mildly, I was pleased to see that there was only one hen in evidence and I was able to avoid her quite easily.

There are a few pictures, naturally

The pigs are called Chutney, Pickle and Ketchup!

Alpaca

Pygmy Goat

Angora Goat

More alpacas, the white one is called Moomin

Rather better view of an angora goat.

More goats

pretty ducks - although you can't really tell that from the pictures. 

The place has been open to the public for about nine years apparently so I don't know how it is that I have only become aware of them in the past six months or so, but anyway, we had a great time, despite the miserable weather. After we had fed the animals we got fed ourselves with a very fine home baked lemon drizzle cake, and coffee especially blended for them by The Orkney Roastery ( I know, surprising isn't it?) . We bought a bag of the beans to use in our new bean to cup coffee machine because it was really nice. We're now waiting for the Facebook announcement of their Christmas Sop opening times! and I expect we will go back again quite a lot, next year. 

On Sunday the weather brightened up no end and we went for a walk. Sadly the new walks book has gone and hidden itself somewhere so we just drove down to Burwick, which is more or less the most southern tip of South Ronaldsay, got out of the car and had a wander. 

I worry that I'm getting a bit obsessed with graveyards , but honestly they throw up the oddest and most photogenic of things

 yes, that really is an old bedframe round a grave

and as always, in Orkney, the view

And actually I know perfectly well why t has taken me so long to blog about it and that is because I have returned to my studies big-time. I had forgotten how long it takes to actually read stuff, especially stuff more challenging than a detective novel. 

Baking Subscription September - Chocolate Caramel Tart

I was going to write a bit of a rant-y post today because I have been wrestling with Stupid Systems and Irritating People a lot recently, but that's not a good way to start the day so I opted for writing up the latest baking subscription box instead.  

I saved it to make while my sister was here, partly so that she could try it but mainly really because it looked like it was going to be a ginormous faff to make and it meant that she could read out the instructions while I followed them. That turned out to be a good move, because in concocting this I used three Pyrex bowls and a china one, as well as two pans and a food processor. 

It was hunungously disappointing, although to be fair it would have had to have tasted like the nectar of the gods of Olympus to make it worth the myriad of processes and time and effort taken to make it. There was a pastry case, two caramel layers, a chocolate flavoured layer (meant to be mousse like but wasn't really) some walnuts and some biscuit crumb. 

The pastry case turned out really well, which isn't always the case with my pastry, although doing it in a food processor means that it generally turns out alright. This was then scattered with a few chopped walnuts, not nearly enough to make their presence at all worthwhile. On top of that was a caramel layer, which made the pastry soggy followed by the chocolate mousse but which had very little chocolate flavour, followed by the rest of the caramel and then scattered biscuit crumb. The biscuit crumb also went soggy due to its proximity to the caramel. 

It tasted nice, but texture wise it was an epic fail. This was a badly designed recipe and I won't be making it again. 

And maybe tomorrow I will rant. 

The Downs and Ups and Downs of a busy busy week

So back on 20th September one of my two remaining aunts died.

I wanted to blog about what a shock that was, and how sad, and how I couldn't believe that she had, you know, died when she was supposed to be part of my life for ever, and how somehow in my  mind I had assumed that she would be. But I couldn't, because it hurt too much and I missed her too much and even now several weeks later I still get the shock of remembering that she's gone every morning when I wake up. Maybe one day I will blog about her, and it will be about what an amazing aunt she was and how much I loved her, and why. And maybe I won't, because I can't yet think of a time when it won't be too upsetting to write about.

Anyway funerals take an age to organise in England which is partly why hers wasn't until a week ago, and the other partly was because her eldest son had to arrange to get here from Australia. So it was with a rather heavy heart that I got up at the crack of dawn for the ferry last Thursday morning and drove to Northumberland for her funeral last Friday. That was a hard day, although we got through it. I had been very worried about my uncle but after seeing him I felt a little bit reassured; he seemed to be over the worst of the shock and was making pans for the future, although my heart broke when he said 'I can't have a lot of time left myself, and I just want to make it as easy as possible for the lads for when I'm gone'. 

On Saturday we zoomed back to Orkney and were totally shattered on Sunday which was when my sister arrived for a 5 day visit. I was worried that that would clash with the funeral but luckily it didn't, having said that it was all a bit of a mad rush to get ready for her arrival. The weather was foul when she arrived and stayed that way until Wednesday, by which time I was succumbing to the cold she had brought with her so despite the sunshine we stayed in. We did have a brief walk on the beach in the evening, and we had had a good rootle round town on Tuesday, mostly attempting to scope out Christmas presents, but really, October is not generally a good month to visit Orkney. Her visit was enlivened by Lorenzo bringing in a live bunny and then dropping it in the hall at which point it did an excellent impression of Speedy Gonzalez  , zoomed round the corner and into the guest rom where it took refuge under the bed! The OH corralled the cats in the sunroom and then rescued the bunny, I'm not sure how. We all gave it a bit of a good luck stroke before he returned it to the entrance to its warren. Despite everything it was good to see my sister, we don't get to see one another often enough, but I'd rather have visitors when the sun shines so that we can go out and do things!

In the evening a friend rang with  the news that yet another friend of ours had lost her husband that day, which was a bit of a downer. Today I had a list of Things to Do, one of which involved a quick and needful task to do with some on-line Uni admin stuff. That developed into a frustrating and vexing saga which had me almost reduced to tears, took nearly the whole day to sort out and left me feeling totally frazzled and unable to face doing anything else at all. And still only two thirds done. 

However I am not going to fret about it again until Monday. Tomorrow we're off to an exhibition opening followed by a trip to this place where we would have taken my sister had the owners not been away on holiday while she was here. (Somewhere warm and not windy if they had any sense) Looking forward to both of those things. And Sunday we will relax. Possibly. 

A Trip to the Moon And some knitting.

A couple of weeks ago we went to see the moon. This was not the real moon that hangs in the sky, obviously, but the Skyran Moon which is a replica, possibly 3-d printed,  and made of some sort of fabric-y, plastic-y stuff. No, I never did GCSE Resistant Materials. That was well after my time. Otherwise I might have known. 

The Skyran moon has been touring Britain apparently and was in Stromness, hung up in the Academy for about a week and about a third of the population of Orkney went to see it, which is quite impressive, I think. 

It was tricky to take photos, although I did my best and although I might sound less than thrilled actually it was very interesting, because of course we got to see what the Dark Side is like. If I were more into astronomy I'd have got more out of the whole experience but it was something fun and different. Also they were selling homebakes for the school fund, and they were generally cheap and delicious.  

There you go. The Dark Side. And my favourite feature, if only on account of its name - The Sea of Crises.

The moon didn't delay us long but it was a beautiful day so we went for a walk, from our new walks book. We started off near Warebeth Cemetery where George Mackay Brown is buried, though I'm blessed if we could find his grave. That didn't really matter as I am rather fond of the occasional wander round a graveyard looking at the names and other information you get on headstones. This being Stromness there were a lot of master Mariners and more than a few chandlers, but the thing that really caught my eye was a headstone for a late Victorian lady who rejoiced in the name of Hughina. 

Once we had given up on finding GMB we slipped out of the graveyard onto the path that leads from the cemetery to the Ness battery and walked along it a considerable way. More pics ....

the cemetery

a really interesting rock formation, not very clear here, looked like something out of a painting

a handy seat put up in memory of someone whose name now escapes me

this is me trying to be arty crafty with my camera

a view in the other direction

The Ness Battery, rather a long way away. It's a WW2 relic. 

The problem with taking photographs on Orkney is that there is always always far too much sky! although I do my best to get round that. 

And a propos of nothing at all except that I have decided I really must post knitting pics as soon as stuff is finished , so as to avoid long catch up posts,  here are my latest two projects. 

a pair of socks for me - the OH was secretly hoping they would be too big and he would get them, but alas.....!

and a lace wrap, which is currently blocking. It is huge, but rather beautiful; however, knitting it confirmed my feelings about knitting lace,   which is that it is not something that suits my temperament. At All.